Electric Guitars Design and Invention: The Groundbreaking Innovations That Shaped the Modern Instrument

Electric guitars do not happen by chance. They look and sound and play the way they do by design. And the people who design today s guitars draw regularly from the treasury of great instruments created in the 50s and 60s. Why did the Telecaster, the Les Paul, the Stratocaster, and the ES-335 become so influential? Who designed the Gretsch 6120 and the Rickenbacker 12-string, and what has made all these 50s and 60s creations last so long? In Electric Guitars Design and Invention, we learn from guitar styles that came and went as fashions changed graphic finishes, the German carve, the hybrid acoustic-electric and examine the extremes that designers can bring to the guitar, from Steinberger minimalism to B. C. Rich pointiness. The book also provides space for today s guitar makers from one-man shops to large international factories to explain how they develop new ideas and cater for modern playing styles and tonal tastes. Is it possible now to do truly new work, or has everything been done before? Does any contemporary maker have the nerve to ignore the achievements of the past? And can a single design of today still aim to be a universal guitar for everyone just like the Strat and the Les Paul? Electric Guitars Design and Invention shows through an absorbing story and a remarkable set of illustrations exactly where the instrument s designs have come from and where they are heading in the second decade of the 21st century.